Torredembarra: a Mediterranean housing model. Landscape, architecture and garden for the Torredembarra row-houses projected by J.M.Sostres

Abstract

On analyzing the evolution of the architectural project and building of the row of four summer attached houses designed by Josep Maria Sostres in Torredembarra (1954-57) reveals a deep, critical reflection on the ultimate sense of architecture after Modernism. Starting from the specific site conditions, Sostres builds an exemplary work in which his own modest and wise personality is shown. He dares to go after a synthesis of several formal and spatial keystones developed by the first modernists (i.e. Le Corbusier and GATEPAC Catalonian architects) and other contemporary discoveries (due to Jacobsen in Denmark and to Neutra in California) related to landscape and human values as emerging attributes of the post-war architectural practice. Avoiding International-Style rhetoric gestures and vernacular local building mimesis, a modern architecture subordinated to surrounding Mediterranean landscape is proposed: new forms of living are experimented involving the interior and exterior spaces of every house in the row, considering the presence of the sea nearby and the enjoyment of its garden, in which breeze, shadows, water ponds and vegetal species create a rich experience for human life in open air.